In the communication field, as new technologies and new services continuously emerge, the software of the communication equipment needs to be updated frequently, so as to maintain and optimize the communication network and provide more extensive and better communication services. Software update involves almost all communication equipment, such as switches, routers, Integrated Access Devices (IADs) and so on.
In all the existing software update procedures, the software to be updated is stored in an independent server, and then a data transmission connection is established between this server and the communication equipment to be updated, so that the software stored in the server can be transmitted to the communication equipment. During the update procedure, the corresponding files of the software stored in the server are directly transmitted to the communication equipment, and then the communication equipment loads the software to replace the old files with the new files, and the equipment is updated accordingly.
However, in the existing methods for updating equipment, the communication equipment does not back up the old configuration data which includes the user data, therefore during the software update procedure, if the communication equipment is powered off or the updated files error happens and so on, the old configuration data may be lost, which can bring great loss to the operators. In other words, the risk of losing data during the equipment update procedure exists in the prior art, which affects the security of the equipment update.
In addition, in the existing methods for updating equipment, the software update procedure is not monitored. If an error occurs during the update procedure, e.g., the communication equipment is powered off or the updated files error happens, the old service ability of equipment may not be inherited after the update procedure is finished, which may lead to unsuccessful equipment update and harm the security of the equipment update.
Moreover, in the existing communication equipment, the old software version is usually not saved during the update procedure, so the old software version is not available to the equipment anymore in the case of unsuccessful update. Therefore, after the unsuccessful update, the communication equipment may change into failure or fault and cannot function normally, which greatly affects the security of the equipment update.